


the quiet of the aftermath

by venndaai



Category: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, DC Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Canonical Character Death, F/F, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-09
Updated: 2016-07-15
Packaged: 2018-07-22 12:25:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7439156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/venndaai/pseuds/venndaai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lois Lane, post Superwoman.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. it's not bury your gays if she comes back after like a month

Perry never tapped her to write a follow-up Superwoman story. Lois didn't get the feeling that he was trying to forbid her from anything. He knew her passion was for exposes, not op-eds. Thankfully, he never tapped Clarke for Superwoman pieces either, just sent her to baseball games and charity galas. “I should be grateful,” Clarke said to Lois once, wet from rain that had fallen a hundred miles away, her back against the rickety radiator in their shoebox of an apartment. She was rueful, a little downcast. “He gives me a pretty light schedule.”

“And pays you peanuts,” Lois reminded her. She looked at the knife in her hand, looked down at the vegetables on the cutting board. She'd won the argument about who got to cook that night, claimed she was tired of hearty midwestern comfort food. Which was true, but the argument had been about more than that. Clarke could chop these vegetables in under a second, and she didn't understand why she shouldn't, save Lois the trouble, the possibility of nicked fingers, blood staining wood.

“I'd just like to write something important for once,” Clarke said. Lois couldn't stop herself from sighing quietly, remembering too late that Clarke could hear everything. Clarke worked hard, especially considering the demands on her time. She deserved a promotion. And it had to sting, depending on Lois's paychecks to pay the rent. It wouldn't happen, though. Lois was pretty sure Perry had a low opinion of Clarke's literary talent, and she thought he was probably right. Clarke believed in her work, a quality many journalists badly needed, but her prose would never be more than workmanlike. Lois hated herself for knowing that. She stabbed at the green onions, blade slicing through the delicate stalks.

“Hey,” Clarke said.

Lois put down the knife. Turned to look at her. She'd left the suit somewhere, Lois didn't know where, and she was sitting against the radiator wearing only boxers and a shapeless plaid button-down. Her wet hair lay flat against her skull, ends curling where the heat was baking them. Kryptonians didn't worry about split ends.

She looked concerned. Lois sighed again, but fondly this time. “Hey yourself,” she said. “Come here.”

Clarke bounded up, all endless puppy energy, her frown instantly transformed into the smile that still left Lois a little breathless. Lois reached out, their hands meeting, fingers lacing. She lowered her arms, towed Clarke close enough to kiss, sweet and satisfying as the very first time. That close, she could break the kiss and breathe in the smell of rain and wet hair, wet flannel, sweat and Old Spice (“it's what my dad always got for me when I was a teenager,” she'd said defensively, when Lois made fun of it). The apartment was a bit overheated, what with the crackling stovetop, the burbling radiator, and Clarke's own radiating heat, skin always just a little too warm to be human.

“You're stressed,” Clarke said. Lois wondered if she had seen it in Lois's posture, her tone, her sighs and silences, or in her heartbeat, her blood pressure, something Clarke could smell or hear that no one else could. Did it matter?

“I'm sorry,” she said. Clarke put her hands around Lois's face. Lois could feel them shake a little with the effort of carefully holding still. Clarke, always so careful when touching others. Always aware of their fragility. She wondered when she'd learned to do that.

“Why?”

“Um,” she said. The corner of Clarke's mouth quirked, and Lois felt the beginnings of a laugh bubbling up, despite herself. “I don't know,” she said, and let herself giggle. Clarke was laughing too. Then they were kissing again, in their tiny warm Metropolis apartment, and for a moment Lois was looking at it all from the outside, their bizarre little life, and she felt briefly giddy with happiness.

* * *

  
If she had been told to write an opinion piece on the phenomenon that was Superwoman, she would have started by saying that most people thought about Superwoman all wrong. There was danger, but not because Superwoman could ever be any kind of threat. The danger was getting used to her, fitting her into your casual worldview, as someone who would always be there, who would catch you if you fell. Someone perfect and invulnerable.

* * *

  
What had struck her, the first time she'd seen the mysterious woman she'd come to know as Clarke Kent- really seen her, on the floor of that ancient craft from another world, flaring hot pain in her side, blue eyes locked onto hers- was how big she was. Probably what struck most people first. Clarke was tall, taller than most men Lois knew, taller than the other Kryptonians Lois would eventually encounter. Clarke was shaped like a body builder, under those oversized shirts. Even as a human she could have laid Lois out flat. It had never frightened her. Not like it frightened the rest of the world. Not like it made the men at the Pentagon angry, made the women on television uncomfortable.

Lois, well, she'd always been into big women.

She'd never been afraid of Clarke. She should have been. She hadn't. Maybe that was what had kept her searching, more than the mystery.

Clarke had certainly never been afraid of her. Not of what she represented, not of the threat of exposure. She'd stood there in that graveyard so confident that she could convince Lois to drop the story. So present and assured, in her ugly men's clothes, her dusty boots.

Clarke Kent was brave because she'd never had to be afraid. She picked up hot dishes bare-handed, walked barefoot over broken glass, leaned over the edges of skyscrapers to take the perfect shot. She kissed her girlfriend on the subway, held her hand walking through darkened alleys. She'd never developed a fear response because she'd never been hurt. Not physically.

There were different ways to be vulnerable, of course. And Superwoman had more mundane weaknesses than Kryptonite. Sometimes Lois came home to Clarke curled on the floor, and knew to close the heavy blinds, turn out the lights, get out the heavy blankets in the hopes that they could insulate Clarke from the million sounds and smells of the city, the cries for help that Superwoman couldn't give.

Clarke hadn't been afraid of Zod, hadn't been afraid of the Batman. (Who'd turned out to be the Batwoman, and part of Lois was inanely trying to compose _that_ story.) In the face of threats, she reacted, she acted, usually she punched things. Maybe Kryptonians weren't built for panic, for the terror that shut down weak human bodies.

In the end, there was only one thing Clarke was ever really afraid of.

* * *

  
Lois Lane was brave because she'd earned it. Because she'd built it up, over almost a decade, pushing herself again and again, starting small standing in front of her parents and saying the words that would start the cold silence of years, practicing with shortcuts at night in her high heels, graduating to volunteering for assignments that sent her to warzones, years of effort finally culminating in facing down murderous gods, running through a collapsing city, throwing herself between a vengeful Bat and her prey.

She had to draw on every last ounce of that courage to face Martha Kent after... after.

The flight to Kansas was easy enough, she was on autopilot, she was fine if she didn't think about how Clarke's body was probably being transported home at the same time, she had work to do, Perry had tried to give her compassionate leave and she'd asked if he really thought he could do without his star reporter at a time like this, and he'd shaken his head, probably seeing right through her. But there was a lot to do. She had to finish the story of Luthor's set up, had to make sure Clarke's name was clean without the slightest shadow. She had to... “Could I get a gin and tonic?”

Driving out to the farm was harder, but still, she could keep her hands on the wheel and let her mind drift, eyes barely taking in the endless cornfields, the cloudless blue skies.

She stood in the dusty empty space in front of the clapboard house for a long time.

The house had seemed too perfect to be real, when she'd tracked it down, tracked Clarke down. Back when she'd still been the intrepid reporter, chasing a story. Chasing a ghost. Somehow, the house had been the strangest part. It seemed wrapped in a bubble of calm, perfect rural Americana. You could tell it was a home, somewhere a family had lived for decades, carving themselves into the place. Lois was a military brat turned city slicker. She'd never lived anywhere like this.

The place had been trashed by Zod's soldiers. Clarke had rebuilt it with her own hands. Her smooth, uncalloused hands, picking up huge pieces of siding like they were kindling, with no care for splinters.

There was someone watching her. She turned, sudden cold sweat making her tremble.

The woman from Gotham. She'd said her name was Diana. She wasn't wearing the armored bra and skirt any more. She'd replaced them with a perfectly respectable forest green blazer and long skirt. Black heels. A broad-brimmed white hat. Despite the outfit change, she still didn't look human. Maybe it was her presence, so strong it felt like a physical force. Maybe it was just that Lois had seen her shake off blasts that leveled buildings with a wild smile and a toss of raven-dark hair.

“Hello,” Lois said.

“Hello,” Diana repeated, inclining her head. Her white hat bobbing. She walked closer. Smiled, a more human smile than the one she'd worn on the battlefield. Reached out a hand, touched Lois on the shoulder. Lois moved without thinking. Body acting without waiting for the brain to catch up. Her body was clinging to a stranger's chest, her arms wrapping around hard muscled shoulders, while her brain shouted in shock.

But the woman- Diana- was hugging her back. Was murmuring, “It's all right.”

Lois stepped back. “I'm sorry,” she said. She scrubbed her burning eyes with one hand, was horrified to discover they were wet. “I'm sorry, I don't know what- I don't know what I'm doing.”

“You're looking for comfort,” Diana said. “That's good. It's what you need.”

“I don't even know you,” Lois said. Stating the obvious.

“There's time to fix that,” Diana said, still smiling. Lois felt her mouth fall open. “Now, go inside.”

The first time she'd met Martha Kent, the older woman had looked at her with distrust and anger, hard, unrelenting. Lois had pressed her, made her speak in the briefest of words of her missing daughter, her dead husband. When she'd spoken Clarke's name, Martha's voice had softened, perhaps against her will.

The second time, Clarke had been there, hand around Lois's shoulder, holding her just tight enough to be reassuring, grinning as she introduced her mother to her “friend, Lois. Or, I guess, girlfriend.” She'd turned her head, turned that grin on Lois, slightly nervous, self effacing, and then it had transformed into something else as she continued. “My brilliant, beautiful, wonderful girlfriend-” Lois had swatted her on the arm- harder than she would have with anyone else- and Martha Kent had laughed, as though it had been startled out of her, as though she hadn't laughed in a while. She'd hugged Lois. She'd smelled of apples and dusty Kansas earth.

They'd gone outside and worked on the house. Clarke had done most of it, but Lois had been determined to help. She could bang in nails better than Clarke could. Half the time Clarke broke the nails or bashed them all the way through the wood. Martha had worked beside her, hands dirty and calloused the way Clarke's could never be.

Clarke had never met Lois's parents. Lois had been determined that she never would.

And of course now she never could-

Lois leaned against the doorframe, pain in her chest, in her lungs. She couldn't do this. She couldn't ring that doorbell.

The door opened.

“Come in,” Martha said. And then, “Please.”

She'd aged ten years since Lois had last seen her. Hair white at the roots. She moved slowly, carefully. “There's apple pie,” she said. “Two days old, but still edible.”

Lois stepped over the threshold and into her life post-

Just. Post.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hopefully i'll write the next chapter and bryce wayne will show up. and we all know clarke's not staying dead. this is intended to eventually lead to a foursome, because i can do what i want.


	2. angst, angst and more angst

 

  

There were more people at the funeral than Lois expected. She'd talked to some of them, trying to track Clarke down. A red-haired young man tried to speak, but had to excuse himself, tears dripping down his freckled face. A dark haired young woman introduced herself somewhat defiantly as Clarke's first girlfriend. Whatever reaction she'd expected to get, it didn't come. Everyone was silent. Tired, maybe. Lois remembered listening to voices on the radio, driving out here. How lost they'd sounded. People had lost friends and family in Gotham. They'd lost their sense of security. They'd lost Superwoman.

“She was my daughter,” Martha Kent said. “She was brave, sometimes stupidly so. She was kind. So kind, even to those who didn't deserve kindness. You all know that. What you don't know is how small she was, as a baby. How much she cried. It killed me, hearing her cry.”

 

* * *

  
“She wasn't religious,” Lois said in the farmhouse kitchen, a statement that contained a question.

“We'd been losing our faith for years before she came to us,” Martha said. “Finding her... watching her... it was the last blow. But not in the way you'd think. Every time she took a step, every time she reached out in wonder... I saw something far brighter and better than God.”

“Maybe we all see something like that,” Lois said, “in the ones we love. But how can you see a daughter and a goddess both at once?” She shook her head. “A goddess and a lover?”

Martha shook her head. “She wasn't a goddess,” she said. “She was better than that.”

Her hands were shaking.

“I remember she was sixteen when she came home from school and walked right into the kitchen instead of heading straight to the fields. She looked straight at me- she didn't always do that- and said, 'Mom.' She was nervous. I'd almost say afraid. I just waited while she worked up to it. 'Mom,' she said, 'I think I like girls.'”

There was an old familiar weight in Lois's stomach. She was quiet for a moment, and then she asked, “What did you do?”

Martha shrugged. “I hugged her. That always seemed the simplest thing to do. Sometimes hugs say things voices can't. She hugged me back. So tall, even then. So strong. But careful. Even when she was all worked up.” She shrugged again, just a small lift of one shoulder. “Then I told her nothing she was could ever be wrong.”

Lois processed that. She was- she was glad, to know that Clarke had had a better mother than she had. A bit bitter, too. Mostly sad. Everything she heard about Clarke now just seemed to make the sadness more pervasive. Heavier. “Did she tell your husband?”

Clarke's mother sighed. “A few hours later. I eavesdropped. It didn't go so well. Jonathan- he always tried his best, believe me, but he always thought too much. Couldn't stop himself worrying. To him, it was just one more thing to worry about. Something else for Clarke to hide. He never wanted her to attract any attention.” She must have seen something in Lois's face, because she added, quickly, “He always believed a day would come where Clarke could tell everyone who she was, and the world would love her for it. But growing up here- living here for a lifetime-” There was a hardness to her now, the same hardness Lois had first seen, meeting her on that porch. “There are good people around here. Bad people, too. Growing up with them, living with them, you see the worst as well as the best. And if you're cynical- you only see the worst. And you start believing the whole world's like that.”

“I can understand that,” Lois said. She could. She'd struggled with it, as well. Maybe in the end that was the real reason she'd chased so hard after the guardian angel who saved lives and never waited to be thanked. Maybe that was why she'd needed Superwoman.

She'd never told Clarke that she'd been the one to coin the name. Just a few comments to the soldiers on the army base, but a day later it had been all over the news, on the streets, and she'd smiled every time she heard it.

 

* * *

  
Lois didn't speak at the funeral, didn't even get up. She wasn't asked to. She did look in the coffin, just briefly. Lois had seen dead humans. Clarke didn't look like one of them. More like a marble statue, cold and hard, that someone had awkwardly painted with makeup and forced into a black dress. No hidden stitches. She knew Martha Kent had refused to allow an autopsy, even if there had been a way to cut into Kryptonian flesh. Lois tasted bile. She swallowed it down. Turned away. Walked over to Lana Lang, introduced herself with a handshake.

Up close, she was pretty, and pale, and sharp-eyed. “The famous Lois Lane,” she said. “I'm honored. You're a household name, even in hicksville.”

“Glad to hear it,” Lois replied, as graciously as she could manage.

“So,” Lana said, “tell me, Lois Lane, what was it like, living with Superwoman?”

Lois couldn't think of anything to say to that. Just blinked, muscles tensing.

“Yes,” Lana said, “I knew. I figured it out the second Zod's message showed up on my dad's tv. Weird... weird things always happened around Clarke. Even when she was a kid. That's why I broke up with her, actually.” She smiled wryly. “I was eighteen, and I couldn't handle the possibility of dating a god. Or a prophet. Those seemed more likely options than 'alien', but this is the bible belt. More or less.”

Lois just smiled, and nodded, and swallowed. She could see Martha Kent over Lana's shoulder. The older woman was frowning, eyebrows knitting.

“Sorry,” Lana said. “Didn't mean to scare you. Don't worry, I've been keeping her secret for decades. I'll keep yours too.”

Martha walked over. “Lana,” she said, pulling the woman into a hug. Then she drew back, and put an arm around Lois. She felt warmer and stronger than her slow movements had led Lois to expect. “It's time,” she said. “Let's lay her to rest.”

 

* * *

  
The graveyard was as quiet as Lois expected. The back of her neck itched. She wanted to turn. But there would be no tall blue eyed woman behind her, wearing someone else's clothes and a broad, disarming smile.

It seemed wrong to bury Clarke in the ground, away from the sun. She guessed there weren't really any other options. Cremation wasn't feasible.

The other mourners left, in ones, twos and threes. Martha squeezed Lois's arm, and then she left, too. Lois stayed. It was quiet by the grave. Calm. The air smelled of freshly turned earth. She wasn't ready to leave. This place was a bubble, outside of time, where she didn't have to keep moving. Here she could just be.

The watcher was very, very quiet. But Lois had a journalist's instincts honed in combat zones. She turned, and made eye contact with an elegant dark figure straight out of a noir movie. The stranger's eyes widened. She stepped back and disappeared into the trees. Lois watched her vanish. She had a good memory for faces, and she was pretty sure she'd just startled Gotham's most reclusive billionaire.

She felt her mind shift into higher gear, drawing her out of her fugue, entering her back into the stream of normal time.

“Bryce,” Clarke had murmured, face bruised and bloody.

Bryce Wayne certainly had the means to anonymously finance a funeral. Or a career in high tech vigilantism.

“Hi,” Diana said behind her.

Lois spun, biting her lip to stifle an expletive. “God, you're quiet,” she managed, after she'd recovered herself. Quieter than the Batman. God.

“Sorry,” Diana said. She didn't really sound sorry.

Lois stared at her. “Who are you?” she asked.

“That,” Diana said, “is a very long story.”

Lois looked down at the grave dirt crumbling between her fingers. At the mound of dark earth behind her. The pale headstone.

She looked back up. At Diana. “I have plenty of time,” she said. “Walk me to my car?”

“If you'll give me a lift when we get there,” Diana said.

Lois felt her eyebrows raise. She kept being startled. Swept off her guard. She hadn't been so shaken off balance by Clarke, or Zod, or Batwoman, or Luthor.

“Fine,” she said. “But I get a story out of it.”

Batman watched them go.


	3. go away alfred i'm brooding

  
Lane had seen her. Damn. She didn't want America's foremost investigative journalist chasing after her secrets. Lois Lane deserved a break from freaks, from darkness and danger.

She was the one who'd stopped Bryce from... she'd saved her, and Bryce couldn't think of a single way to repay the debt. She didn't think Lois Lane would appreciate money or political favors. Although, if she got a cause in her teeth-

Bryce turned it over during the long trip back to Gotham, so she wouldn't focus on Martha Kent, the knowledge that she was leaving her all alone. More alone than Bryce had been, at ten years old. And it was Bryce's fault. Batman's fault.

She wasn't getting anywhere on the Lois Lane problem. She turned her mind instead to the other project- the League. She received a brief text just before boarding her private plane at the Topeka airport, an unknown number, the message consisting only of: I'll find the Atlantean. You track down Barbara Allen and the cyborg.

There was always more to think about. More to consider, to plan. Gotham wasn't as damaged as Metropolis had been a year ago, but it would still need repairs, and Wayne Industries needed to be at the head of that. The fight with Doomsday had exposed multiple weaknesses in the suit. The fight with Superwoman had exposed multiple weaknesses in the woman who wore the suit.

She'd recovered every last fragment of Kryptonite from the scene. It would be simple to lock them safely away, somewhere they could be accessed for research- she hated thinking of it, but there might be more of Superwoman's people out there, they had to be prepared-

 _You_ always _have to be prepared, don't you, you bitch,_ she thought, and smashed her glass against the armrest of her seat, hard enough to shatter it.

“Ma'am!” the flight attendant exclaimed. Bryce stared at the jagged remains still in her hand.

“Fuck,” she said. “I'm sorry. I'm sorry.”

She wanted to say she'd help clean up the mess, but she knew she'd only get in the way. Instead she watched, impotent rage building instead of settling. She pushed it down, furious at herself.

But when the glass and spilled liquid were cleared away, she closed her eyes and asked for another drink.

 

* * *

 

  
“Mistress Bryce,” Alfred called, as she blew past him. “How was the funeral?”

“Lovely,” she said, with a coldness he didn't deserve.

Down in the cave she stripped off her ten-thousand-dollar black dress suit, peeled off her heels, and threw on old jeans and an expensively fitted sports bra. She breathed out. Transforming from Bryce Wayne to Batman was really just exchanging one kind of heavy weight for another, but the weight in the cave was one that felt good, like exercising until your lungs burned.

She was seriously considering ways to update the moniker to one more accurate. Would the scum of Gotham be as intimidated by the specter of the Batwoman? Would she perform better if that extra layer of performance was stripped away? It was something to think about, if she was honest about her intentions with the League. Such an association couldn't remain in the shadows. And the people themselves, they would have to know something of their recruiter.

The computers down here only displayed Batman's research. She needed the two versions of her kept as separate as possible. She needed Batman to stay pure, untainted by all the flaws and faults of Bryce Wayne.

Not many messages. Not many people with Batman's contact information. A few from Gordon, updates on criminal activity since the battle, questions about Batman's own activities. One from Nightwing. Short, simple, but she could practically hear the prying concern in Rikki's voice. She was worried about her. Well, she was always worried about her. Ever since Jaye's death. Her concern was justified. It just happened to be useless.

Nothing else from Diana. Bryce found herself scrolling through her designated 'Diana' file, staring blankly at pictures she'd already seen a dozen times. She quickly closed out, shut off the monitor. She was losing it.

She turned the monitor on again. Typed in a cipher. Opened up her 'Superwoman' file. It was a lot larger than Diana Prince's. Filled with news clips, Reuters photos, grainy images ripped from Twitter feeds. All the same. That instantly recognizable profile. That serene expression. And, of course, the suit.

Just a week ago, looking at that face had filled her with terror and rage. Now it felt like that had been a different woman, someone else sitting there, planning how to murder God.

She'd watched God die. She'd closed her eyes, folded her hands on her breast, lifted her body, held that weight. She felt like she'd never stopped carrying that weight.

“Mistress Bryce?”

“Go away, Alfred,” she shouted.

“Believe me, I would like to,” the old retainer muttered, his voice echoing down the curves of the cave. “Unfortunately, I have a duty. A thankless, hopeless duty-”

“Stop whining.” She turned off the monitor and crossed her arms on the desk, extending her hands to support her head, palms pressed against her aching eyes.

Alfred's footsteps came closer. “Please tell me you at least slept on the plane.”

Her silence presumably spoke for itself, because he sighed. “Come on. Time for bed.”

“I'm forty years old, Alfred.”

“And somehow twice as stubborn as you were at twelve.”

Arguing about that wouldn't lead anywhere good. Bryce pushed her chair back and staggered to her feet, appalled at the wave of dizziness that resulted. When had she last slept? Surely it couldn't be more than thirty hours ago?

“That's it,” Alfred said, encouragingly, “up we go.”

“You're enjoying this.”

“I do have so few pleasures in life.”

She did feel some relief, when she finally reached the bedroom. She liked sleeping at the lake house. More than she liked sleeping in Gotham, certainly. At night, the dark expanse of the water spread out beyond the wide glass walls, and she could lie on silk sheets, air conditioning humming in her ears, and let herself slowly dissipate into that black nothingness.

 

* * *

 

  
She was in the dream again, chained in the cave- why hadn't she noticed it was the cave before? Superwoman was strangling her again, but this time she wasn't afraid, wasn't panicking. Good, she thought, do it, kill me, save yourself.

But Superwoman was frowning, her hands were dropping from Bryce's neck, she was stepping back. “No,” she said, “no, no.”

“You idiot,” Bryce screamed, incoherent, desperate, throat burning, “you can save her, she needs you-”

Superwoman smiled. She pressed her lips to Bryce's, a kiss that seared, sending a white-hot jolt through her body. “You can save them all,” she said, and she was pressing something into Bryce's hands. The world was melting. Bryce was standing alone on a vast empty plain. She looked down at her hands, at the glowing green shard they were holding.

She looked up. The insects were descending.

She woke up sweating.

 

* * *

 

  
_You let your family die you let your family die you let your family die-_

“Mistress Wayne?”

Pause. Breathe. Feel the sweat trickling down your forehad.

“Yes, Alfred?”

She could feel his judgemental gaze, boring into her back. “Are you finished torturing that poor punching bag?”

She tossed her head, flipping her hair out of her face. “I believe so,” she replied, smooth, controlled.

“In that case, I would recommend a change of clothes. There is a lovely young lady here to see you. She's waiting in the drawing room.”

“Alfred, it's not a drawing room-” She sighed. “Does she have an appointment?”

Alfred climbed back up the stairs, apparently without hearing her.

Bryce sighed again, louder.

She showered, partly out of contrariness and partly because she did have her vanity and didn't want to greet company filthy and sweating, particularly not as Bryce Wayne, particularly not a lovely young lady. Not much more than stepping under the water and stepping out again, but she stepped out as herself. Her other self. Then it was the dark blue suit Alfred had left out for her. She felt herself soften a little. She enjoyed a good cocktail dress as much as the next socialite but she always felt more pressure to be “on” when her shoulders were exposed.

“Hi,” she said, walking into the open area, and managed to keep her vague smile in place as her brain came to a halt.

“Thank you for seeing me on such short notice, Ms. Wayne,” said Lois Lane, rising from her two thousand dollar armchair to extend a hand towards her. “I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions.”


End file.
